Scoop w/ @DanielStrauss4. Tulsi’s 2020 campaign manager and consulting firm will leave after this weekend’s formal launch. The rollout has been a mini saga with several false starts and then Gabbard catching her own staff unaware when she announced on cnn. https://t.co/OYRwgPeENe
— Alex Thompson (@AlxThomp) January 29, 2019
Because I’m an old Cynic, I’ll admit my immediate suspicion is that Gabbard tried to get ahead of her Sandernista staffers by jumping in with her Big Reveal before they could cement her into the ‘Vice President/Handmaid to St. Bernie’ role. Of course, whatever their private alignments, no professional managers are going to be pleased by impetuosity like this:
… Campaign manager Rania Batrice and Gabbard’s consulting firm Revolution Messaging are set to depart after this weekend’s official kickoff in Hawaii, two sources familiar with the situation told POLITICO. Gabbard is leaning on her sister, Vrindavan, to fill the void.
Meanwhile, the congresswoman is under fire back home after picking a fight with Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), and a prominent Democratic state lawmaker is already challenging Gabbard in next year’s congressional primary. That means she faces the possibility of losing the presidential race and her House seat as well…
Batrice is an experienced campaign operative and served as deputy campaign manager for Sen. Bernie Sanders’ insurgent 2016 bid. But Gabbard‘s tumultuous rollout over the past several weeks suggested there is a disconnect between the candidate and her team…
Three people familiar with the presidential bid over the past few months describe a candidate who managed to be both indecisive and impulsive. Just announcing her candidacy became a minisaga that exhausted and bewildered people involved.
At first, Gabbard had vendors and staffers working through Thanksgiving weekend to get ready for a campaign rollout, only to pull back. Over the next several weeks, Gabbard went up to the starting line again — signaling to her team that a green light was imminent — only to make repeated retreats.
The pattern of false starts continued through Christmas and New Year’s, frustrating people who worked through the holidays.
When Gabbard did finally announce she would make a 2020 run, her team was blindsided. “I have decided to run and will be making a formal announcement within the next week,” she told CNN on a Friday night in a pre-taped interview for “The Van Jones Show.”
The Gabbard campaign website was not ready to go live; social media posts weren’t ready to be sent out. And Gabbard hadn’t signed off on the launch video…
The Honolulu Star-Advertiser‘s editorial board weighed in against her candidacy. And state Sen. Kai Kahele, a fellow Democrat, recently declared his candidacy for Gabbard’s congressional seat. Days after he announced, the powerhouse liberal group Daily Kos, which directed millions of dollars to Democratic candidates in 2017 and 2018, endorsed Kahele…
The conflicts have robbed Gabbard’s long-shot campaign of any early momentum. Though she was one of the few members of Congress to back Sanders over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential race, that endorsement has bought Gabbard little goodwill among Sanders supporters in Hawaii, said Tim Vandeveer, a former state party chairman who backed Sanders in 2016.
“I think that proximity doesn’t translate to support,” Vandeveer said. “I have yet to talk to a single Bernie Sanders supporter … who is supporting Tulsi over Bernie.”
Uh-huh. Color me not-shocked by that.
Surprising, bc several previous campaigns have successfully integrated Baathists, Russians, surfers, & Hindu nationalists in to a cohesive operation. https://t.co/U4hFs8fufJ
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) January 29, 2019
Hawaii state Sen. Kai Kahele officially announced that he plans to run for the congressional seat occupied by U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, setting up a potential 2020 Democratic primary challenge for Gabbard early on as she embarks on her bid for president. https://t.co/jqOhP2Qp8M
— HawaiiDelilah™ (@HawaiiDelilah) January 22, 2019
Major Major Major Major
Phew, I was worried she was going to take up lots of oxygen.
HalfAssedHomesteader
The Revolution will not have a consulting firm.
Cheryl Rofer
I think both Gabbard and Schultz are going to crash and burn early. For Schultz, when he crashes depends on how much money he wants to spend.
Cheryl Rofer
Kind of good the loonies are coming out of the woodwork early.
Kraux Pas
Does this mean she’s even less competent than Trump or are Republican political consultants simply more tolerant of incompetence?
jacy
Kai Kahele is sorta hot. Does that make me shallow? I really hope this exposure means Gabbard loses her seat. She is just sketchy. And I think she’s pretty much an early casualty for president.
Mary G
thank u, next
Amir Khalid
@Cheryl Rofer:
If Gabbard is so inept, how did she get elected to the House in the first place?
Spider-Dan
A fun game for the kids: name three times Tulsi Gabbard has publicly criticized Republicans. (note: criticizing “both sides” for the Trump Shutdown doesn’t count)
Here’s 4 times she publicly criticized Democrats: Obama for not saying “radical Islamic terrorists,” Obama again for not bombing enough terrorists in Syria, DNC for being unfair to Bernie, and Mazie Hirono for “religious bigotry” (the same week Gabbard launched her presidential campaign).
Tulsi Gabbard has no constituency in the Democratic Party. She is Joe Lieberman in a skirt.
Omnes Omnibus
@Amir Khalid: She’s good looking and a veteran? Ergot? Your guess is as good as mine.
Mike in NC
Gabbard is a horrible DINO. She would have dated Trump Jr.
Kraux Pas
Somehow even after 2 years of a Republican excuse for an administration, these magic words have failed to produce world peace.
Also, she should stop copying her notes from Faux News.
Major Major Major Major
@Cheryl Rofer: is Schultz even really running, do you think? Seems like a lark to me. More Mark Cuban than Bloomberg.
ETA and I’m off to bed
dmsilev
@Major Major Major Major: As far as I can tell, he seems to think “I’m a billionaire, but not crass like that one” is a winning slogan. I think he’d have better luck with “pumpkin spice all year long”.
Bobby Thomson
So, just not that woman, either.
piratedan
i remember the earlier threads today about the Progressives targeting certain Dems because they sat in safe seats and were not as progressive as “they should be”, citing Congressman Cuellar as a target… and yet, no one had Tulsi spring to mind with her heartfelt support of Syria and some of her other dubious political positions, seems like this would be exactly the kind of seat that would be ripe for their organizing wouldn’t it?
mrmoshpotato
@Cheryl Rofer: Sounds like a silver lining in these crazy-long election cycles. (Never thought I’d think that)
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Cheryl Rofer: Shulze reminds me of the GOP candidates for California governor, basically rich fools with enough money for a futile vanity run.
sukabi
The whole “website and other stuff wasn’t ready” doesn’t make sense if she was having them all work through the holidays in anticipation of announcing EARLIER than she did…they should have been in a holding pattern and testing the site waiting for her announcement. Not claiming to be blindsided when she delayed, delayed and then announced.
Sounds like Bernies people aren’t “all that”.
Punchy
Chris Christie getting bombed (literally, on tequila) on Cobert”s show. Actually pounding the sauce. Fat D-bag not so unlikeable, amazingly.
jl
Well, too bad for Gabbard.
But, right now I am focusing on good news, not Dems who were maybe once promising but apparently have decided to flake out.
I, for one, predict that Stacey Abrams will be able to turn the usually thankless task of the SOTU response into a damn good speech, and people will be talking about it as much as the SOTU mess itself. And in a much better way. Let’s hope.
Bobby Thomson
@piratedan: it would if their actual goals and their professed goals were the same. It’s just a front group for Sanders.
Bobby Thomson
@jl: Gabbard was never promising.
Bobby Thomson
@sukabi: I think Anne nailed the motivation of her departing staffers.
sukabi
@Bobby Thomson: They’re still “not all that”…Bernie isn’t going to have the traction or the media over attention this time around, so even if that was their plan it wouldn’t have worked.
jl
People can obsess and build bizarre and scary fantastical scenarios in their heads about politicians who have almost no influence and seem to be getting ready to disappear into their own ridiculousness. It’s a free country and people are free to choose bizarre hobbies as they wish.
But this Schultz fool is a far more serious danger. They guy is, at best, a dangerous fool. Gabbard will do a superb job of turning herself into a ridiculous back bencher, and lose her seat in a primary if she keeps up her nonsense presidential candidacy up. The corporate media and other interests are eager to puff up the Shultz fool into a real danger, for reasons that should be obvious below (as if we didn’t have enough evidence already).
Greg Sargent
@ThePlumLineGS
Remarkable. In an interview with NPR, Howard Schultz seems to rule out any and all corporate governance reform, and repeatedly dodged on whether he’d support higher taxes on the wealthy, while claiming to care about deficits and inequality:
https://twitter.com/ThePlumLineGS/status/1090364919361556486
FlipYrWhig
@Amir Khalid: Her dad is a Hawaii politician. AIIEEEEE POLITICAL DYNASTY!
gwangung
This sort of performance suggests to me that she IS like a lot of the performative progressives: not very disciplined, not that organized, not that good at building management structures.
Hm. Reminds me of another “progressive” icon.
Raoul
I’ll want to know more about the new candidate, but I’m thrilled that she is being challenged for Congress in ‘20.
There are some amazing frosh, as well as more seasoned, Dem women in the House, and we should elect more. But we don’t have to keep Tulsi.
The arrogance, alone, of thinking she has the chops to be POTUS? Hah!
Jay
@jl:
Captain Cofeffe will suck up a lot of BothSiderist ink, but he’s getting ratio’d on Twitter and his book signing/PR fluffery have had him “heckled” for trying hard to re-elect Dolt 45.
He’ll be gone by May.
sukabi
@Jay: don’t think it will take that long. He seems very attached to his money and he’d have to spend a huge chunk of it to gain the kind of momentum he’d need. AND he’s not charismatic or crazy enough to be a ratings cash cow for the tv clowns.
Jay
@sukabi:
He created “special” Starbucks cards worth $3.50, ( minimum Starbucks cards are $5) to “reward” employee’s for “winning” a $3.6 billion dollar deal.
He probably steals Sweet and Low too.
sukabi
@Jay: I bet they were thrilled to get a free plain small coffee as a “reward”. That’s as insulting as leaving a 2 cent tip.
tobie
I’ve been scratching my head wondering why Schultz has gotten so much media coverage today. Until this past weekend I had never heard of him. Funny how every super rich guy who expresses an interest in running for President gets immediate and fawning coverage. I don’t get the sense that NPR is chasing down other would-be contenders (e.g., Booker, Brown, Klobuchar) for interviews. The House had hearings today on lowering prescription drug prices and voting rights. Did NPR even bother to report this? Charlie Pierce’s moniker for Politico–Tiger Beat on the Potomac–applies to so much political reporting these days.
Spider-Dan
@Jay:
Doesn’t take a whole lot of money to run a ratfcking campaign. Just ask Ralphie or Dr. Jill.
I think Schultz’s true preferences are something like the following:
1) centrist Dem (e.g. Biden)
2) Trump
3) Howard Schultz
4) progressive Dem (e.g. Warren)
If a #1 ends up winning the Dem primary, Schultz will quickly abandon his campaign. But if a #4 wins, you will see Schultz stay in, followed by aggressive campaigning in the Rust Belt. For Howard Schultz, compared to someone like Warren, Trump IS the lesser evil.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
Maybe Assad can lend her some political advisers.
SectionH
@jacy: Local Boys are no ka ‘oi…
ooo, I can edit? Hawaiian for, uh, the best?
Srsly, Kai Kahele looks like real deal politically too. May Tulsi regret her stupid run for Pres.
plato
@Spider-Dan:
LOL. Nailed it.
Wapiti
@jl: I’m not happy with Schultz’s vanity run, but I think the Dems can make their positions clear by using him and his ideas (and lack of ideas on how to fix problems) to highlight their actual ideas and plans and positions that would improve the lot of 95-98% of American’s lives.
Right now, Schultz seems to be marketing pablum and tired corporate-speak.
Jay
@Spider-Dan:
I think Schultz’s true preferences are something like the following:
1) Schultz
2) Trump
3) Putin
4) the reanimated Zombie corpse of Ann Rand.
He’s out on a book tour selling another one of those Horatio Algiers fictional mythologies, a presidential run get’s him clicks and eyballs from the Beltway and Punditocracy, Brooks and The Moustache of Understanding are probably already swooning.
He was too cheap to actually pay to campaign for a new home for the Sonic’s and runnoft’d instead. He thought that whinging about how hard done Billionaires in Seattle were was all he needed to do to get the city and state to cough up new digs with mucho skyboxes.
Mnemosyne
I’ve been offline most of the day, but have I mentioned lately that I would have Ted Lieu’s babies if I weren’t already in menopause? ?
https://mobile.twitter.com/RepTedLieu/status/1090379963885338624
Jay
@Mnemosyne:
Epic. So much shade it’s a full eclipse.
plato
Just.Do.It
poleaxedbyboatwork
Personally, I’d liketa see Warren or AOC or Harris or whomever tell Howard “Lettum-Eat-Cat-Food” Schultz that his insistence that a guy who lives inna country wherein it’s possible to become not just rich but obscenely wealthy fucking OWES a debt to society that he can never repay but a good fucking start would be him cheerfully contributing to the common good instead of pretending that the infrastructure that makes his success possible is sustained by the free-market fairy and clapping louder for his self-evident fucking magnificence.
Oh, that and that it’s fucking galling and insulting and yes, fucking unAmerican, that his sniveling answer to financial solvency for the country entails not the least sacrifice from him or his entitled class but rather put-upon shrieks of Marxism and unAmericanness and forcing granny to eat cat food.
Fuck. That. Guy.
Jay
@poleaxedbyboatwork:
AOC is one of the people ratio’ing him hard on the Twitterz.
SectionH
@Mnemosyne: I just want to see Senate Majority Leader Lieu. In a better timeline, soon, like when he runs for the Senate because our junior Senator has worse job…
Srsly, I need a happy fantasy. So who does Newsome appoint in a really good outcome in 2020? I don’t trust him much, but we’ll see. If it were Adam Schiff, that would be fine too.
eta last minute tbc – because she is Pres
poleaxedbyboatwork
@Jay:
The things a body divines on Balloon Juice. This here internet Luddite learnt “ratioed” a coupla days ago consequent to a foray inspired by Ms. Rofer’s observation about the dunking dear old Howard was (justly) receiving upon his candidacy to be crowned homecoming queen of the pundit’s debutante ball.
Well, spose it’s mordantly like that old saying by Ambrose Bierce: War is how ‘Muricans learn geography.
Jay
@poleaxedbyboatwork:
I learn new things every day. It’s good.
Aleta
Trump’s vanity enabled his run.
The more power Cheney got, the more he changed into a monster.
Schultz has shown several times that public good and ‘for the people’ isn’t what guides his decisions.
His presentation of himself is ‘curated’ (sorry) right down to using a common-man writing style with (looks like to me) purposefully simple vocabulary and expressions; if that’s true and not my imagining, it makes my gut feeling a little ill.
He might not stay in, but he’s not going to get out unless it stops being to his advantage. IOw, he’s not going to get bored.
He’s competitive and engages to win.
He didn’t despise Trump enough to take the Starbucks out of the T Tower 2 years ago. … … … Profit came before taking a public corporate stand against racism and misogyny, even though many NYers would have cheered SBs for that.
I can’t say that he will withdraw until he experiences more than one big defeat, with his experienced, well-paid advisors telling him it’s a wash.
So imo he has potential to do real damage and can’t be shrugged off.
Would be happy to be wrong.
poleaxedbyboatwork
@Jay:
Ya, same here. Crowd-sourcing info and experience by sentient, feeling, caring humans — whatta concept!
(Failt to mention I enjoyed particularly your description of the real-life jackals yipping and barking outside your abode coupla nights ago.)
sukabi
@poleaxedbyboatwork: you’ll enjoy this panel at Davos
It’s a follow-up panel. In a panel the previous day CEO of DELL was bitching about 70% proposed tax rate. Challenged panel. Claimed thete was no country on earth where that’s ever worked or been tried. The nice historian promptly educated him, politely and with a smile.
Aleta
@plato: oh please I beg for this.
Jay
@Aleta:
His key weakness, is he’s cheap. His Starbucks fame came from:
– riding a trend
– cost cutting by using machines to compensate for talent
His wealth is based in his Starbucks stocks and options. They took a $2 dollar dive when he announced and got ratio’ed.
He won’t be around long. It’s not that often that a Billionaire book launch get’s bagged for BS and lies on day one.
@poleaxedbyboatwork:
Loved your ravens. Only ever see a few here, too few dumpsters and salmon runs in the high Country.
sukabi
@poleaxedbyboatwork: this is the first Davos panel I was talking about.
poleaxedbyboatwork
@Aleta:
Tend to agree. Lotta destructive ways a Schultz vanity run could go, and am hoping Howard is gon’ get put off his feed by alla the richly deserved slagging and ridicule and abuse he’s getting and will just say fuck it.
But: My impression of the douche in question is he’s so full of self-regard and pompous grandiosity that he thinks he’s doing the country a favor by “injecting SANITY” into the political bloodstream. Despite (or perhaps b/c of) the fact that his vainglorious efforts are assuredly bound to help Trump not Dems. Someone (forget who, sorry) said Schultz would rather Trump win than yield the poltical field to a (ooooh! scary!) “Democratic radical”.
Someone (piratedan? nice one, btw!) sez Gabbard is Lieberman inna skirt; think that applies even more aptly to Schultz. Except he’s a (actual) billionaire.
A vanity run could be extended right up to voting.
Me, I don’t wanna get too exercised till the horse’s-ass actually announces and runs. But if he does, and if he looks like he’s innit-to-not-winnit-but-throwit, inna fit of pique and reactionary imbecility, personally, would like to see not just the individual Dem candidates for prez but the ENTIRE fucking Dem caucus/establishment make dear old Howard their meat. Cook, carve, serve, eat, shit.
Schultz is promulgating one of the more pernicious both-siderist fabulisms whose only actual semblance to, you know, real-world policy is: no one — except pundits! — gives a shit about the deficit (certainly not the GOP) *except* when a Dem is president —–> so that they can effectively hobble a Democratic agenda. Schultz’s only constituency is the Moustache of Understanding and people who fap furiously to the Simpson/Bowles greatest hits.
If Schultz runs in earnest, I would very much like to see the Dem caucus take on this agenda-killing “entitlements” chimera and finally slay the fucking dragon.
There’s a selfish bloated charlatan hiding behind a curtain. Pull the fucking curtain down.
poleaxedbyboatwork
@sukabi:
Thank you. Read about an exchange in which one a the Masters a Universe at Davos asked rhetorically and rather condescendingly some like: “70% tax on Richie Rich! — yeah, right, whereZAT ever worked?” and someone who wasn’t ignorant as fuck replied: “The United States”.
And that ain’t even the most of it — 91% top marginal under that renowned Marxist Dwight David Eisenhower.
Mnemosyne
@SectionH:
Sorry, the next US Senator from California needs to be Adam Schiff. Fight me. ?
Lieu is going to have to settle for being the first Asian-American Speaker of the House. He’s already one of the Assistant Whips, so he’s on the House leadership track.
Kathleen
@HalfAssedHomesteader: The Revolution will not be organized.
SectionH
@Mnemosyne: No fight, you’re right – Adam is great – and senior. Ted is great, and more subtly as good on the Twit machine as the best of them.
We could “fight” about our (= my neighborhood) Toni Atkins (Speaker, CA Assembly) and other things about California, some of the politics of which I will never really figure out in some ways.
Toni sent her locals a Happy Holidays card – it was her and her wife and their puppies. I loved that so much – it was actually the first time I’d noticed anything about her personal stuff. I was like Oh Cool, they have srsly cute puppies.
She seems to be pretty cool in SMF too…
Ken
@jl: I think Stacey Abrams needs a “plan B” in case Trump goes totally bonkers at the SOTU. A nice, professional, respectful speech that uses the phrase “25th Amendment” as many times as possible.
(I posted a similar comment in the thread on Abrams, but I think that one was already pining for the fjords.)
Joey Maloney
@Amir Khalid: In a nutshell:
1. Gabbard comes from a political family with deep roots in the state and a semi-fuckton of money.
2. Her district is everything-but-Honolulu. The biggest population center is Hilo at about 40K. It’s rural and less liberal than the big city. There is a heavy seasoning of conversative religious types and her homophobia that she now disavows played well with them.
kindness
I thought Tulsi was more of a liberal Republican than a Bernie Bro. She supports far too many conservative fiscal positions to be a Sandersista. But what do I know? Glad to see the Bernie faction killing each other off. Better than their normal target which is other Democrats. And you know, I find that part really odd. Here is a guy who isn’t a party member. Refuses to be a party member and yet he (and his legion of idiots) in running for a Democratic Party Position attack Democrats rather than the Republicans any Democrat should be attacking.
We need to lance this boil more quickly than we did in 2016, because in 2016 it screwed up the entire election’s narrative.